Eli's in the house!

Finally picked up Eli couple of nights ago. It's hot here but I think he likes it better than being too cold. Weird. I can't stand the heat nowadays. On his first full day here yesterday, we had roti canai for breakfast, bah kut teh for lunch and we had a nice seafood dinner last night with a bunch of my high school friends at a seaside restaurant.

I'm finally done with rush poker for now. HEM came up with a HUD for rush and I think it's gonna ruin the game. I liked it because bad regs can't play that well without reads and now they're gonna have HUD for rush it's gonna kill it a little. I only managed to clear $200 out of the $500 bonus that was offered to me. Still not too bad, 5ptbb plus $200 bucks and I'm done with ftp once again.

Chinese new year is only days away. Can't wait. Can't wait til Shin and Joe get here too. Only 2 more weeks!

Rush poker, and I got visitors!!!

FTP decided to give me a $500 bonus to try out rush. Turned out it was a good move on their part. I just put some money there and started playing some rush. So far I kinda like it. It's the only way you can sit down and get 800 hands an hour right off the bat. No need to put yourself on wait list, look for juicy tables, wait for big blind etc. The only thing is I need to earn 10k ftp points before the 10th for the $500. Doesn't look like it's gonna happen. But I'll get at least part of it so it's all good.

Time goes by quick. Can't believe I'll have to go pick up Eli next Wednesday. And two weeks after that we'll go pick up Joe and Shin. The last trip I took with you guys were 4th of July 07 Myrtle Beach. Now the next trip I'll take with you guys will be to a nice island with lots of great beaches. Keep this theme going I'll probably meet you guys in the Bahamas next year.

All hell breaks loose

Well, seems like I haven't updated this blog in over 2 months. This is a much needed update in case if anyone still cares.

If you haven't heard, read these 2 threads on 2p2 and stox. You probably won't be able to watch the stox thread since it's in the private section but it's similar to the 2p2 thread.
http://www.stoxpoker.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29205
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/101/coaching-advice/where-did-jason-ho-thread-get-moved-695466/
The main character of this story is the guy I've been working with in the last 3 months. He had a whole 'crew' of players under him and I'm the luckiest of them all because I'm broke and have no money to be taken for. I paid the guy total of 600 bucks for coaching and that's it. Well, 3 months of not progressing hurts too, but not as bad as these guys. Well, it sucks to be naive and stupid. I fell for the dream and it hurt me. Nowhere near unrecoverable tho so it's all good. I actually learn some basic stuff and some not so good stuff and as a result, I'm a little lost with my game. I'll be fine after a little bit of tweaking. No big deal.
One good thing tho, I got a lot of good friends out of this and these are pretty cool guys. Some are good nl200 grinders so I should be able to learn a few things from them. We will move on from this bad experience and become better player and more importantly, better person because of this.

King of gambling!!

lol Joe Cada actually made it to the newspaper here in Malaysia. He's described as king of gambling. Not much is mentioned about the game of poker. It just come across as he won something, like a lotto or something.

That's the problem. Poker is skill based obviously but nobody knows that around here. That's why i hate it when the uncles and aunties ask me what I do now.

Weird dude

Villain in this case is a 7/5 nit. He tanked and tanked and tanked until the last possible second and called with 66. Weird. Few hands later he opened utg with Q5o or something like that. Wtf?


PokerStars Pot-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (8 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.com

UTG ($32.10)
UTG+1 ($60.60)
MP1 ($29.50)
MP2 ($50)
CO ($78.35)
Hero (Button) ($50)
SB ($9.50)
BB ($47.50)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Ad, As
1 fold, UTG+1 bets $1.50, MP1 calls $1.50, 1 fold, CO calls $1.50, Hero raises to $8, 2 folds, UTG+1 raises to $18.50, 2 folds, Hero raises to $50 (All-In), UTG+1 calls $31.50

Flop: ($103.75) Qs, 5h, 3h (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($103.75) 8c (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($103.75) Qh (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $103.75 | Rake: $3

Results:
Hero had Ad, As (two pair, Aces and Queens).
UTG+1 had 6h, 6s (two pair, Queens and sixes).
Outcome: Hero won $100.75

Golf

Today makes the 3rd week in a row that I play some golf on the weekend. There's a little 9 holes course near my house and I finally found someone who's willing to play golf in a 30'c weather. The only thing different today was I actually walked the 9 holes. Yeah, I walked. By 4th hole I started to regret that I haven't drafted a will and at one point I was actually dizzy and felt like I was about to pass out.

Don't even ask me what my score was. It wasn't pretty. Whatever I can do on a driving range all disappear when I'm on a course.

As far as poker is concerned, fuck poker, fuck weekend games, fuck the fish, nits and regs. Fuck them all. I fucking hate poker.

That's it.

A little update

It's been awhile since I last updated my blog. Not that many of you cares but I'm gonna go back to updating it a little more often.


October wasn't that nice. It was frustrating. Of course it's much better than September but I feel like I should have done better. I'm going thru some growing pain by trying a few different things while I'm working with my new coach. I'm confident this will help in the long run so I'm not worried too much about my result at the moment.

Life has been fine so far. I know some of you care about that. Still single but with this new commitment to more volume and extra time I have to spend on this game, it's gonna be real hard for me to know new girls. Not that I"m that awesome of a guy to begin with, so this will probably not gonna end well for me. I've been thinking about getting my own place, a one bedroom or a studio type place. With the new baby coming in my family it's probably a good idea to move away for now to make sure there's not much distraction for me in the next few months. We'll see.

I don't know if I'll have time to go back to what I used to do. With the daily report and funny hands etc. Hopefully I can do it, I know Tim really wants to read all that shit. Got some new pics too. I'll post them later.

That's it for now.

September 09

September was a bad month for me. Up until a few days ago I was in a 100k hands break even stretch. That's the longest I've been in. I was in plenty of 50k BE stretch but this is my 1st 100k. I guess technically it wasn't a losing month for me but it doesn't matter much. Thank god for the September special bonus.

By the way, Eli has gone nuts. Check out this link:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/54/poker-beats-brags-variance/prop-20k-31-days-100nl-602186/
Good luck dude. Looks like you'll get some action.

Sept update

This could be my first losing month ever. It's been about 45k hands so far and I'm still down about 2 bi. Hopefully things will turn around.

However I am working on something that could be big for me potentially. I'm working with a new coach now and all I have to do for now is to put in the hands and make sure I can follow his coaching. If I can impress him for the next couple of months then we'll continue the arrangement further. Wish me luck.

Poker is fun

This is the last 14k hands. Fucking get hit with a 10bi downswing right off the bat in Sept. fml.

August 09

Ok, I'm giving up on August. It was a fine start but I kinda faded at the end. I now have 'afraid to get out-played syndrome' and I make too many bad calls. I need to just watch a couple of videos and go back to the basics. I play too many small hands for big pots and worst of all, I play being out of position too often. I kinda got away from the basics and I need to stop thinking these regulars are exploiting me. I still need to make money from fish mostly.

As for the goals I set for August I failed spectacularly in every single one of them except the winrate, which is not much better than the 3BB I set. I was hovering at 5BB or so the whole month until the last 15k hands or so. Blah, I'm so disappointed right now at myself and my results I just don't feel like I'm worthy of any kind of improvement. Why the fuck am I so fucking lazy????

I'm still at 86k+ vpp this year so far. Not even supernova yet lol. If I can somehow get to 200k vpp I'll get 6k in bonus alone. That means I need 114k vpp and at 0.2vpp/hand, I need to play 570k hands before the year is over. That's almost 150k a month. Ok, I'm not gonna make it. Nevermind that.

A little update.

Looks like I'll be way off on my goals for this month. I'm only at around 33k hands so far with about a week left. I'll be gone for the last couple of days of the month to a beach too. So it looks like I have to get in those 12k hands days a few days in a row. I got a better chance winning the lottery than doing that.

I'm at over 5BB for my winrate tho. 33k hands, huge fucking sample I know.

And my holdem manager just broke down and I haven't done a backup in like 10 days.

Epic fail

I think I'm gonna miss my goal this month again, even though it's only 1/3 into the month. I planned on taking 1, maybe 2 days off during weekdays and grind all weekends. I totally failed the first weekend. After grinding for a few days I decided to take Friday off and play all weekend. Well, not counting the time I spent sleeping at home, I think I spent total of 3 hours at home all weekend.

But I'm running hot, so what the fuck do I care?

The changes I made to my game

First of all, the stuff I'm gonna say could all be a fluke. Maybe I was just running really good for about a 50k hands stretch so all these may not mean anything. But I feel like these changes I made are good for my game. They don't all just happen overnight. It's just stuff that I've been learning but somehow never really got them integrated to my game for whatever reason. I'll post the stats and graphs from my last 60k hands (hands played in July) and the hands I played in April. There's some significant differences in a lot of areas.

First of all, my stats:
1. Last 60k hands:
2. April:
First of all I'm playing looser now. I went from a 12/10 to a 16/13. I think one main reason I'm able to do that is because I play less tables now. I'm able to pay attention to more hands while before that I missed a lot of isolation chances and obvious spots where I can just raise and cbet and take down the pot against the right opponents. I play 14-16 tables on stars now. And everyday I spend 1 or 2 hours playing just 6 tables on ftp. I really try not to miss any spots. It's like my daily lab time for me to do experiments. I see things that could work and I just do it. If I think this guy can't take heat I'll 3 barrel him. I'll 3bet. I'll 4bet bluff. I'll resteal. I'll check raise turn with draws. I'll bluff shove river. I'll try everything. All that experiments give me an idea how often those plays work even though it's only small sample. How many times you cbet the flop with 89o in position on a 662 board and get raised by the bb and just give up? If the guy's fold to 3bet is 50 or lower, fuck him, I'm 3betting. They don't work all the time but what the fuck, gotta try it to see if it works right?

My 3bet is a lot higher. I'm just picking my spots better I think. There's a bunch of regulars at Stars that just don't fold to 3bet much even when they're stealing. I don't 3bet those guys light from the blinds much although more if I'm in position. I pick those guys who steals a lot and fold to 3bet 65% or more. I also 3bet more in position now. My fold to 3bet is a higher which is understandable. I'm stealing more so I need to fold more hands from steal position. No point playing a bloated pot with bad holdings. I call sometimes with marginal cards but it's with a plan to take it away post flop against the right opponents.

I cbet more now. It's just overall profitable cbetting the right flops against most players. I'm in position most of the time and it's just hard to play against aggression and against someone who has initiative in the hand. My fold to cbet is lower now. I float more and try different things more often lately.

My steal % went up nicely. I steal with any 2 sometimes on the right tables. Some of these guys just give up too easily. Fold to steal in both sb and bb went down. Against people who steal a lot I call with some hands that I used to just give up on and try to play poker post flop. W$WSF is higher as well. I'm sure that's the result of me not giving up as much nowadays.

The result of all these changes? A little higher winrate. Could have been a lot higher if not for those 2 shitty days.

The graphs next.
1. July:
2. April:
The redline is a little bit more in control unlike before. God I hate the last 10k of July every time I look at that graph.

However, even with all the changes my winrate is still not much higher than the one I had in April. I was playing 24 tables and making more money hourly with that style than the one I have now. Do I think the newer style is better for my long term growth as a poker player? Definitely. Do I need to get too excited about the differences in my game? Definitely not. I opened up my game quite a bit but it also means that I'll run into marginal situations a bit more compared to before. How I handle those situations is gonna be the most critical part of my game from now on. I won't say if the changes are good or not, even though deep down inside I'd say they are good, until at least couple of months from now. Who knows, it's a game of ever changing strategies. Can't always stay at one place and never move forward. We'll see and wish me luck.

Golf related

I finally played some golf last week. Went out to this 9 hole course near my house in Permas last Friday I think. Didn't realize how cheap that place is. 18 holes with a trolley is only 38rm. That's like 10 bucks usd. With a golf cart it's 58rm ($16usd). I played only 9 holes by myself and managed to shoot 58 lol. Everything was so rusty so that's kinda what I expected before the round anyway. It's not the best course in the world but for that price I'm not complaining.

1st post in a long freaking time

Sorry I haven't been updating this blog lately. There's nothing interesting happened lately and it seems boring to post just poker stuff. Although it can't be more boring than posting nothing at all.

July was great until the last few days. I don't think I've ever ran that bad in a 5k hands stretch. I made some changes to my game and at least in a short period of time I'm see some different result. My redline is a little under control now. I'm looser and not giving up as much as before. I'll make a post later about the differences in my game in terms of stats.



As you can see I'm way behind in all in EV this month. That happened almost all at the end of the month when I was on a 12 buy in down swing. My red line is no longer spiraling downward like before. I can still work on it at different areas. Especially 3bet pots. I don't think I'm near good enough to play efficiently in 3bet pots yet.

August goal:
1. Need about 110k hands to finally reach Supernova. I'm not sure if I'll make it but I'll play at least 100k hands this month.
2. Winrate of 3BB or more. My winrate was 5.6BB last month and it went down to 3.6BB in one day. And the subsequent few k hands after that didn't help much either. I don't think 3BB is that tough for me anymore so I'm hoping for 100k hands at 3BB. That's 3k in profit or more if I manage to get to Supernova. I'll have enough vpp to get the $800 instant bonus too if I hit it. August could potentially be a good month for me.
3. Watch one video a day! Omg that's like the hardest goal for me to do. I'm way behind on current videos and I need to re watch some of the old ones since I think I 'get' what they say so much more now. I also get 2 weeks free on Card Runners this month so I just downloaded a bunch of full ring videos and I'll concentrate on those for the next 2 weeks.
4. Spend at least 3 nights a week on Stox forum posting hands. I'm starting to have PM contacts with some of those guys out there and I'm learning a lot through posting and actually thinking about hands.

Wish me luck.

Wish everyday is like this....

Tioman trip

I went to this beautiful little island called Tioman Island last week with Chili and Anna. It was the most relaxing trip I've taken since I came back to Malaysia. Lots of good food and cheap alcohol. It's really cheap too. The whole thing costs about $120usd/person for 3 nights 2 days. Shiiiit, I can lose that much in a few minutes.

Here are some pics:
Me and Chili. Don't let the size fool you. She has a voice that can be heard in miles. And she's spicier than her name indicates. (Ok, I don't really know what that means)

This is Anna, the other cute girl I was with the whole trip.

Breath taking view.

The snorkeling trip was awesome. Lots of fish and the coral was beautiful.

Outdoor bar with a nice view. Beers are less than $1usd/can here since the whole island is duty free.

The view from our balcony.

On the jetty before we left the island. (I see white people!)

June 09, worst month ever.

June was bad. Ran bad and played bad the whole freaking month. I ditched my usual 14 table game for 24 table because I was trying to get enough fpp to get all the June instant bonus.

But total bottom line wasn't too bad though. I had about $2500 in June instant bonus alone. Since I had 2500 guaranteed I spend a lot of time watching videos and reading forums. Got Ed Miller's new book and I already read that twice. As far as my game is concerned, with coaching and all the extra work I'm putting in, I'm pretty sure I'm heading in the right direction. We'll see.

WSOP ME

Got a horse in the ME. He started today and looking good so far. One time Eli, motherfucker one time!